Tuesday, 10 September 2013

Naruto 646 Review

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's review of Naruto chapter 646 which unlike many previous chapters isn't as action driven and focuses more on dialogue and plot, something I enjoy so much more anyways.

Last week had Obito end the chapter by releasing the Jyuubi and we start this chapter with the Jyuubi apparently reaching its final form which it then uses to drain everyone's chakra including Minato and Nauto's tailed beast forms.

Not used to These types of Tentacles ;)

We finally catch a glimpse of Bee after weeks of him either appearing in one panel doing nothing or just being a complete no show and even then we only see him for one page this chapter. Considering all the things that Kurama can do with Naruto I'd expect a lot more out of Bee now since Naruto can share chakra with the whole Alliance, use massive abilities and he's only using half of Kurama's power, but Bee has been working with the Eight tails for years and he hasn't done half of what Naruto has so its all very confusing to me.

We get to the meat of this chapter which is a long story between Madara and Hashirama on the origins of chakra and how it came to be.

So apparently a long time ago war was widespread and to stop the wars some woman decided to eat a fruit that everyone was forbidden to eat, the fruit granted this woman enough power to end all wars but this power attracted the tree which came to life and tried to get its power back from the woman. Sadly the poor tree was defeated and enslaved by the woman's son who later became known as the sage of six paths.

Personally I gotta wonder, who told the people not to eat the fruit? I mean was it god? was it their ancestors? other than that I think it's pretty obvious where's Kishi's very original inspiration for this story came from, he usually burrows from Eastern stories like how he named the Uchiha techniques ( Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi) and the names of the 3 Sannin are also based on a story and today we get...?

The origins of this story are recorded in the Uchiha tablet so it's assumed Sasuke has read parts of this story since we saw him reading it way back in part 1 when Itachi visited Konoha. I wonder if Sasuke believes the same thing Madara does.

Chakra gave people the power to make larger and greater wars than before in the same way that eating the Apple gave humans emotions which they have used for evil deeds, but just like with everything else it's all in how you use it, we've seen characters use chakra to revive their friends and save their allies while in the real world emotions give birth to love towards others, so while Madara is right here, he's only half right in how he ignores the good things that came from this so called " Curse" Similar to how the Uchiha focus all their emotions on hate when they can use those same feelings for love instead.

The Infinite Tsukiyomi was originally Madara's plan and it's interesting to see him deal with Obito being the one to initiate it, Madara has had his hands full so far with Hashirama and the Alliance but one can bet that he is not too happy with Obito being the one to make this dream world that he wants.

I loved seeing the 2nd Hokage use water techniques, we were told he was the greatest Suiton user in the world so to see some glimpse of that was awesome, but not even his water techniques are enough to save Naruto when he's engulfed by the chakra sucking branches.

After weeks of people speculating where Hiruzen has been he finally shows up and with style, I personally loved the theory that his head had been blown off and couldn't regenerate so he just walked around like a headless zombie but I'm glad instead we get to see him here using his famous Enma summon. This same staff helped him way back when he fought Hashirama so who knows Hiruzen might end up becoming very important in taking down this form of the ten tails.

Mini-rant, How stupid is Juugo's question? I mean I like the character a lot but really you see the Ten Tails reach its final form, start draining people till they are skeletons and you think " Man things are really starting to slow down around here aren't they?".

Rant aside the chapter ends with Obito's gigantic flowery erection blossoming ( some credit goes to Rin I assume) and that's pretty much it, not as much of a cliffhanger as previous chapters but that's fine with me.

Ratings.

I enjoyed this chapter and really loved seeing the return of Hiruzen after so long, gotta wonder where he has been hiding before though but seeing him convinces me that we might also see Kakashi again as well since it's unlikely Kishi will forget him after bringing back the 3rd Hokage.

I liked that this is a slower action chapter compared to most, especially since most of this arc has been very repetitive so this story is fresh and entertaining and unlike most chapters you can't hit reset after this so overall I give this chapter a 4 out of 5 and hope you all enjoyed it as well.